How We Do It

Tags

NPR Features TechnoServe’s Work with Coffee Farmers

July 22, 2013

An Ethiopian cooperative improves the quality of its coffee, sells to major international roasters and benefits the local community.

People have grown and processed coffee in southwestern Ethiopia’s Jimma Zone for generations. But traditional processing methods and a lack of attention to quality control made the area synonymous with bad coffee.

In 2010, more than 100 local coffee farmers banded together to form a cooperative called Duromina. NPR correspondent Gregory Warner visited Duromina to learn how these farmers – with assistance from TechnoServe – have improved the quality of their beans and produced some of the best coffee in Africa.